Microsoft to cut around 9,000 more jobs with severance packages

Microsoft wants to reduce the number of employees in the USA by up to seven percent with a voluntary severance program, which would be almost 9,000 jobs. The HR manager stated that severance offers would go to almost all employees whose age plus their years at Microsoft reaches or exceeds the sum of 70, reports the New York Times, among others. “We hope that the program will open up the opportunity for those eligible to take this next step in their own way and with generous support from the company,” the newspaper quotes from the circular. The planned job cuts come at a time of rising costs for the development and expansion of computing capacity for AI technology.

Ever new waves of layoffs

For Microsoft, the severance program is not the first measure to reduce personnel costs, but for those affected, it is likely to be noticeably more pleasant than the previous job cuts. In several waves, the corporation alone cut thousands of jobs in 2025, impacting all company divisions. Most recently, according to CNBC, the corporation had about 228,000 employees worldwide, 125,000 of them in the USA. Only the latter are now being offered the option, with the exception, according to reports, of certain management positions and employees with employment contracts that include bonuses for achieved revenue. It is still unclear how many of the approximately 8,750 eligible individuals will accept the severance offer given the difficult job market.

Approximately at the same time as Microsoft, Meta has even announced that it wants to lay off about ten percent of its employees. This impacts almost 8,000 people at the Facebook and Instagram corporation. In addition, 6,000 job postings are to be withdrawn. The layoffs will explicitly impact employees who have made “valuable contributions,” the head of HR stated in an internal circular. The step was justified by the high investment costs in AI infrastructure, the same reason that is likely behind Microsoft's severance program. The large tech corporations continue to invest billions in the construction of data centers, and the investment sum is expected to increase further.

(mho)